tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5075740671122268515.post4887789197206854244..comments2023-04-06T22:01:07.239+10:00Comments on YOA's Blog Of The Unusally Pointless: What-EVAH, Mad Larry (slight return)Youth of Australiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08509521019229324658noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5075740671122268515.post-60194677330527039582010-07-02T11:03:51.904+10:002010-07-02T11:03:51.904+10:00so when Paul Cornell insists on declaring every si...<i>so when Paul Cornell insists on declaring every single sodding episode to be magnificent it's just... well, silly.</i><br />It's an outright lie. Remember The Android Invasion, people - it is impossible for a golden run!<br /><br /><i>I do feel RTD lost the plot because he was surrounded by people telling him how great he was,</i><br />In fairness, RTD's a harsher self-critic than anyone else, as his books prove. In fact, the overall impression is that if people left him alone to write solo episodes, things would be a lot, lot better.<br /><br />And that's not half as arrogant as it sounds - RTD's original plans for the specials year were awesome.<br /><br /><i>Lawrence Miles is a nice counterbalance, and if you've to take everything he says with a kilo of salt, he's an intuitive bloke and still makes good points.</i><br />This WAS my view. And then he announced he was rubbishing a show he hadn't watched out of blind prejudice.<br /><br />THIS, for me, was the camel that broke the straw's back.<br /><br /><i>Lord, I do go on, don't I?</i><br />Only by the limits of blogger comments. Feel free to email me your genius at<br />ewen32@iprimus.com.auYouth of Australiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08509521019229324658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5075740671122268515.post-66290865351261623972010-07-02T10:58:01.190+10:002010-07-02T10:58:01.190+10:00Still, once you dig beneath his obvious prejudice,...<i>Still, once you dig beneath his obvious prejudice, he does have the kernel of two good points here.</i><br />Go on...<br /><br /><i>The "don't you know who I am" thing.</i><br />Yes. I agree he had reasons to worry, but it's only happened twice this year<br />a) as part of cementing Smith as the Doctor (which felt as "traditional" as the costume changing)<br />b) in TPO, where it turns out NOT to work. At ALL.<br /><br /><i>But it's there as an undertone, all right, and it does bug me.</i><br />Here's my theory:<br />It's meant to.<br /><br />I honestly can't think of another scenario anywhere where a character gets a glimpse of his future and it's GOOD. It's always bad. Scrooge is always dead, Babylon 5 blows up, the Morlocks rule supreme.<br /><br />Thus, in SIL, I got the impression that the Doctor becoming the God of Cool in RS's life was not meant to be a good thing. And the "finger snapping" was a road to hell moment, like the Time Lord Victorious.<br /><br />OTOH, it's not like OTHER Doctors haven't pulled this stunt - ref Rememberace: THIS IS THE DOCTOR!!<br /><br /><i>The series being conservative.</i><br />Fair enough. But my complaint was that it was no more conservative than previous eras.<br /><br /><i>It's hard to pin this down, but there's a look-at-me edge to Moffat's writing.</i><br />I dunno. You might be right, but I don't see it. Certainly not with his non-Who work.<br /><br /><i>"We can safely assume, even at this early stage, that this period of Doctor Who will never run the risk of being uncool,"</i><br />Unless it's intentional, like the dancing at the wedding.<br /><br /><i>and certainly we haven't got anything as bonkers as Smith and Jones</i><br />Bonkers? How was S&J bonkers?<br /><br /><i>or Love and Monsters or Gridlock.</i><br />True, but those were high-octane RTD. Anyone else provide bonkers material?<br /><br /><i>Moff's rehashed a lot of his greatest hits, and many of them have worked, even if all that time-hopping in The Big Bang annoyed me - "look, it's more non-linear plotting, like I did in Blink! See how clever I am!"</i><br />I didn't get that it was "I'm clever", it was done as humor to counterbalance the dark shit in the story. It's very like the Inquisitor in Red Dwarf - I mean, no one behind the camera was going "Ooh, look at the fez, that's deep and intellectual, that is!" were they?<br /><br /><i>The show isn't as mad as it was under RTD, which has good sides and bad.</i><br />I don't think it was ever on the cards, at least for this year. The plot for the Christmas special with Egyptian gods, Orient Expresses, etc, seems to suggest that things are gonna escalate, though.<br /><br /><i>Here's the thing - I've loved this series, and I loved Smith even more.</i><br />Cool. Seriously, as ever, you express these feelings with such simplicity and economy of words compared to me. You are truly the god of all reviewers.<br /><br /><i>Series 4 and the specials had me vowing yo give up reviewing entirely, just because I was sick of the sound of my own moaning voice, but this has made me fall for the programme all over again.</i><br />Not alone there. My completist edge was all that carried me though Planet of the Dead - and even THAT needed pictures.<br /><br /><i>the cheerleading around the new series is wearing.</i><br />Well, THAT hasn't changed...<br /><br /><i>Victory of the Daleks was rubbish,</i><br />As I reviewed. It wasn't as bad as it could have been though, thank god.<br /><br /><i>and Vampires of Venice was such a contradictory mass of derivative pish that I found it outright insulting to my intelligence,</i><br />Yeah, that's fair.<br /><br />But it <i>was</i> fun.Youth of Australiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08509521019229324658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5075740671122268515.post-16310836730453410302010-07-02T10:33:13.642+10:002010-07-02T10:33:13.642+10:00Seems my pattern is to lurk on your blog and occas...<i>Seems my pattern is to lurk on your blog and occasionally pop up and defend people.</i><br />Nothing wrong with that, friend.<br /><br /><i>It's Mike Morris here,</i><br />Eeep. A celeb! I haven't vacuumed the carpet!<br /><br /><i>What use is it, eh?</i><br />Apart from porn and wikipedia, not much, I grant you...<br /><br /><i>It's a shame, because when Miles first mentioned his dislike of Moffat he took great pains to praise his episodes anyway,</i><br />I honestly can't confirm or deny this, but I DO know for a fact that Miles created a fanzine in 2001 filled with vitriol against Moffat. Really nasty stuff.<br /><br /><i>and until he pounced on Silence in the Library with an "a-ha! Told you!" was scrupulously fair.</i><br />Can't deny that.<br /><br /><i>Having said that, I don't think his Moffat-hatred is meant to be taken at face value.</i><br />I might have believed that too, but his "bagpuss" post convinced me otherwise.<br /><br /><i>Miles likes self-parody as a form of humour, and I think it's sporadically funny, albeit I do find myself thinking "oh write a book you self-indulgent dick" on a regular basis.</i><br />Quite a few FP fans agree on that score.<br /><br /><i>You call him spineless,</i><br />Ah, good point. I'm actually quoting hilarious TV show Double the Fist there - quite simply, if you aren't willing to (for example) eat broken glass for breakfast, you are a "weak, spineless dog".<br /><br />So, in fairness, Larry ISN'T spineless, but he IS, IMO, worthy of contempt on recent behavior. My contempt is because while I might post about things that offend me, I've at least read/watched/live through the damn things rather than saying, "Well, OBVIOUSLY, it's crap!" - if I'd followed that line of thought, I wouldn't have ever started a blog or used the internet.<br /><br /><i>And a fair whack of Doctor Who fandom on Twitter - yes, I'm on there to, narcissism is a terrible thing - did seem genuinely infuriated by the Fry comments.</i><br />OK. I can only comment for the online forums.<br /><br />BTW, awesome you commented.Youth of Australiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08509521019229324658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5075740671122268515.post-11821995964191406092010-07-02T09:15:19.351+10:002010-07-02T09:15:19.351+10:00...(stoopid character limit)...
Still, once you d......(stoopid character limit)...<br /><br />Still, once you dig beneath his obvious prejudice, he does have the kernel of two good points here.<br /><br />1. The "don't you know who I am" thing. It seems a fair enough comment. It really annoyed me in Forest of the Dead, and it was the cause of eye-rolling at the end of The Eleventh Hour. Sure, Smith's speech is technically a bluff, but that's just a question of Moffat amending with one hand what he writes with the other. If he wasn't interested in giving the Doctor self-aggrandising speeches, and having him bang on about how big and important he is and how many times he's beaten every monster and its ma, then he wouldn't have put the scene there at all. Plot-wise it wasn't really necessary, so it was something he chose to do; it's an aesthetic he clearly believes in. After all, he's got form in that department. Commanded armies! Click of his fingers!<br /><br />Now fair's fair, this hardly throttles the series - not least because Smith is so beautifully boyish that it can't possibly be too overbearing anyway and hey, it was Moff who cast Smith in the first place. But it's there as an undertone, all right, and it does bug me.<br /><br />2. The series being conservative. Again, I do think this is true. Moffat has more of an eye on critical acclaim than RTD did - I tend to think of RTD as a big kid in charge of Doctor Who, and his series went off the rails (IMO) because he was overindulged. It's hard to pin this down, but there's a look-at-me edge to Moffat's writing. I said after The Eleventh Hour that "We can safely assume, even at this early stage, that this period of Doctor Who will never run the risk of being uncool," and certainly we haven't got anything as bonkers as Smith and Jones or Love and Monsters or Gridlock. Moff's rehashed a lot of his greatest hits, and many of them have worked, even if all that time-hopping in The Big Bang annoyed me - "look, it's more non-linear plotting, like I did in Blink! See how clever I am!" The show isn't as mad as it was under RTD, which has good sides and bad.<br /><br />Here's the thing - I've loved this series, and I loved Smith even more. Series 4 and the specials had me vowing yo give up reviewing entirely, just because I was sick of the sound of my own moaning voice, but this has made me fall for the programme all over again. Still, it's not perfect, and if you splash around on Twitter like I do now, the cheerleading around the new series is wearing. Every writer seems to think every episode is a masterpiece... but look, Victory of the Daleks was rubbish, and Vampires of Venice was such a contradictory mass of derivative pish that I found it outright insulting to my intelligence, so when Paul Cornell insists on declaring every single sodding episode to be magnificent it's just... well, silly. I do feel RTD lost the plot because he was surrounded by people telling him how great he was, so I'm sensitive to that sort of thing. Lawrence Miles is a nice counterbalance, and if you've to take everything he says with a kilo of salt, he's an intuitive bloke and still makes good points.<br /><br />Lord, I do go on, don't I?Nyder O'Learyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16255356920990915952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5075740671122268515.post-27082815752516390102010-07-02T09:14:29.784+10:002010-07-02T09:14:29.784+10:00Seems my pattern is to lurk on your blog and occas...Seems my pattern is to lurk on your blog and occasionally pop up and defend people. This time I'm going to stick up for Mad Larry. Just 'cos.<br /><br />It's Mike Morris here, by the way, but I can only post a comment using my stupid google account name from way back. Stupid internet. What use is it, eh?<br /><br />Anyway... no-one's going to deny that Larry's nowhere near as interesting or as perceptive as he used to be - largely because he's not watching the series, so has very little informed to say about it, and everything he does say is coloured by an irrational dislike of Moffat. It's a shame, because when Miles first mentioned his dislike of Moffat he took great pains to praise his episodes anyway, and until he pounced on Silence in the Library with an "a-ha! Told you!" was scrupulously fair.<br /><br />Having said that, I don't think his Moffat-hatred is meant to be taken at face value. It's too operatic to be real, in much the same way that his imagined violence against Matt Smith is too excessive to be actually threatening. Miles likes self-parody as a form of humour, and I think it's sporadically funny, albeit I do find myself thinking "oh write a book you self-indulgent dick" on a regular basis.<br /><br />(Incidentally, this is why a couple of your criticisms aren't really fair. You call him spineless, but he's drawing attention to his own spinelessness to undercut his overblown invective - I'm trying to avoid saying "don't take it so seriously" here. And a fair whack of Doctor Who fandom on Twitter - yes, I'm on there to, narcissism is a terrible thing - did seem genuinely infuriated by the Fry comments.)<br />...Nyder O'Learyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16255356920990915952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5075740671122268515.post-65367405859612619952010-06-28T16:59:03.604+10:002010-06-28T16:59:03.604+10:00Such stuff dreams are made on.
He's posted ag...Such stuff dreams are made on.<br /><br />He's posted again, ostensibly to test and see what the reaction will be - but I don't have anything left to say.<br /><br />Oddly enough, it appears niether does he.Youth of Australiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08509521019229324658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5075740671122268515.post-22003114037961397262010-06-28T16:24:23.461+10:002010-06-28T16:24:23.461+10:00I actually dreamt about Lawrence Miles last night....I actually dreamt about Lawrence Miles last night... for some reason, he looked and sounded retarded.Miles Reid-Lobattohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01835434778657431574noreply@blogger.com